Monday, 9 June 2008

Celtx a free and open source software for developing eLearning storyboards

If an eLearning course will be build with audiovisual aids, in most cases you will draw up or write a storyboard. The storyboard is useful to:

make sure you cover all the learning objectives,

test the continuity of the story/narrative you use to enlighten your learners

keep the team of developers informed of their expected input and when their input is due.

Celtx is a great storyboard software. It just upgraded to their 1.0 version (cross platform and delivered in a lot of languages). This software is also useful if you want to construct a podcast which is in high need of a good narrative structure.

Writing or drawing up a storyboard can be difficult by itself, but by using software which enables you to break up the script into useful bits for the entire team, you will safe time for all. With Celtx you can add tags to different parts of the script or the use the break-up feature to allow you to do a ‘search’ later in the project. If you have finished the storyboard and you have added the different parts of the storyboard to their appropriate team members, you can set up a schedule that will allow all of your members to work on the project with a clear deadline.

Celtx is impressive software and free at that, under a CC license an amended version of the Mozilla Public License (the Celtx Public License) (Thanks Johnnie for pointing this out!). It was originally build as a screenwriters aid and I must say if you are a screenwriter or willing to become one this is definitely the software to use in your first (or Xth) script. The software uses basic computer skills and allows you to work with preformatted script definitions and aids.

Celtx has some web services as well. You can upload your project to their server and share your project with other (Celtx) members. The membership is free and it is the classic ‘registration’ process similar to other software’s (sign-up). Another useful web service is the snapshot; this allows you to keep several versions of your project. In order to access the web services you will have to download celtx first, after which you can sign up through the web services window in Celtx.